Hacktivist collective has released Anontune program.

Today, a group of programmers affiliated with the faceless web activist group Anonymous launched a new social music program, in development since December, called Anontune. Anonymous is releasing the application as part of its offensive against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the music industry group that has fought for years to keep free music off the internet. The hacktivists previously targeted the RIAA by launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the trade group and related organizations’ web assets in the wake of their successful takedown of web hosting site Megaupload.

The group behind the new software claim Anontune will not violate copyright laws, and thus will be hard for the RIAA to legally combat, because the program works by aggregating music already freely available on the web, pulling up music from the internet’s varied music resources with just a simple search. As of right now, most tracks come from Youtube and Soundcloud, but the programmers are looking to add Bandcamp, Yahoo Music, Myspace Music and others to the software’s databases.

Anonymous is looking at the program as a new way of combating groups like the RIAA. Traditionally they have relied on aggressive actions such as hacking and DDoS attacks, but they view Anontune, with its legal gray area and focus on the consumer end of the music biz, as a more indirect way of freeing music from the industry’s perceived constraints.

[Warning: The program is based on a java applet, and caution should be exercised before running code written by members of Anonymous. There’s a possibility it could damage your computer, in which case we are not responsible.]

The current version of Anontune is still in beta and is incomplete. There is no word on when the finished version of the program will be available.

Watch Anonymous’ video explaining the software below.

[via Wired]